


A Dream Within a Dream

by SegaBarrett



Category: The Prisoner (1967)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 03:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6888748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Number Two works hard at her job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Dream Within a Dream

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merriman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriman/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own The Prisoner, and I make no money from this.
> 
> A/N: Title from an Edgar Allen Poe poem.

Everybody breaks; that’s just a fact of life. An unfortunate one, to be sure, but a fact, as clear as the way rain clings to a window. It’s something I have known my entire life, and something I will always believe to be true. 

Everybody breaks, but some people have a different breaking point than others.

That’s the science of it, at the end of the day, or maybe the art.

Sometimes you don’t know who is who at any given time, and then they surprise you.

And sometimes things just knock you for a loop. That’s the point of living, I suppose. Though I don’t know why, given a choice, anyone would choose it. If I could have planned out everything from the second I was born to the moment they put me in the ground, I would have.

My apartment as Number Fifty-Eight was nothing to sneeze at, but it wasn’t quite what I had been accustomed to, either.

I figured I had better get used to it – I was going to have to follow around this pain in the arse, figure out his secrets and report back. All in a day’s work. Then I could get down to the real business, with ideally less following people around and more actually running things.

Things that I could plan out.

Number Six, as it was, did not seem conducive to any sort of planning.

On the plus side, he had blue eyes that did really “pop”, if I did say so myself.

And speaking of blue…

***

“If you tell a person enough times that blue is truly green, he will believe it. He will, in fact, believe anything that you want him to believe.” I was waxing poetic, perhaps, but it wasn’t my fault that I had grown to love the sound of my own voice. This was a place full of beautiful things.

“Are we going to be done the psychology lecture at some point?”

My predecessor – the outgoing Number Two – looked up at me, letting out a dramatic sigh. 

I hated dramatic people.

“If you had succeeded in breaking him, I wouldn’t need to be lecturing you,” I informed him. “Have you ever heard of Little Albert?”

My predecessor shrugged.

“He was a kid who was afraid of rabbits… Do you have a point that you’re getting to sometime before I’m expected out of this place?”

“Little Albert was conditioned to fear rabbits. He then began to fear white hats, white mice… anything white and fluffy set Little Albert into a tailspin of terror.”

“Okay – and you’re telling me this why exactly?”

“Because I don’t understand why conditioning has not been considered as a possibility for Number Six. It would seem to be the most appropriate.”

“Thought you said you didn’t want to damage him purposely? I’m going to take a wild guess that those in charge wouldn’t be too happy if you fried him and never even found out why he resigned before you did.”

I’d been watching the man, as close as one could get in fact, for the better part of the last few days. I’d played the maid, the driver – the ever-smiling servant – and I had played her with a flourish that would have won me an award.

And I had seen things – I had seen the cracks in the stained glass that made up our guest.

I smiled.

“We won’t damage him at all. We’ll only make him better.”

***

I let my fingers tap against the front door of Number Six’s house. I wondered whether he would be willing to let me back inside – probably not. 

To my surprise, the door did open – maybe he wanted to talk.

Maybe it was all getting to him at last. I knew how that was, as much as I tried not to think back to my first days in this place – what good could that do for anyone? 

I remembered the attempts to circumvent the inevitable, the pull to return home and go back to my old, fake life – the one that I listed on my resume as opposed to the one that had pulled me closer to the brink with each passing day. The one which I had told myself I couldn’t do anymore – I had envisioned myself lying on a beach drinking tequila in my retirement, not chasing around people who couldn’t take yes for an answer.

All in a day’s work, I suppose.

“Number Six?” I called. My voice was bright, chipper. I had always been someone who knew what the way to get what I want was – people never saw me coming, even when I was right next to them. 

He poked his head out, and I found myself looking into those blue eyes again. I chortled.

“It’s good to see you. I wondered if you might be having any ill effects of yesterday.”

He stared at me, and I found myself wavering in my cool resolve for a moment – I wanted to strike him. Who was he, to try and make the Village run in some kind of time, some kind of counter-clockwork, for his benefit? Just so he could prove to be the most stubborn man who had ever lived?

“I’ve been recovering nicely,” he responded coolly, “I’m sure some time out in the sun will do wonders.”

“Bit like a hangover, isn’t it?” I asked him. “Not that you would get those, as you trot around so perfectly moral at all times. Was that it? Why you resigned?”

“Because I had a hangover?” he mused, and then chuckled. He was infuriating.

“It’s not much to ask. It’s not as if we can even use the answer against you – whatever it was, you must have hinted at it at one point or another. It was your decision to resign – you wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t felt that it was the right thing to do. Or, is that it? Are you ashamed?” I chewed my lip slightly, then shocked my system back into staring at him. I couldn’t get off track, couldn’t get lost in thought. That had always gotten me in trouble.

“I’m not ashamed of anything.”

Of course not. His smug self-assurance – did it go all the way down to the bone? Or was it a shield?

It had been, for me. I had seen the movies, I had learned all the quips – I knew how to play with technology, how to seduce a man in six languages, how to slip away and avoid getting caught. How to give someone an idea and make them think it was their own.

“Maybe you’re not as pure as you think, then,” I told him, then offered my hand. “Walk with me.”

He gave me a little tilt of his head and seemed to consider it.

“It’s not as if I have somewhere else to be,” he quipped at last, but refused to take my arm, instead opting to walk beside me. I felt a flash of anger – was he really trying to pull rank with me? I was Number Two – and after a long time coming, might I add. I only answered to one person – couldn’t that be enough?

We walked, and I let myself survey the Village again. I had gotten used to this place; in a way, it felt like home, like something that drew me in and made me want to stay. It reminded me of the field of poppies in The Wizard of Oz – if you laid down and fell asleep, it would be all over. You would be lulled to sleep and never wake up again.

Then again, I had no intention of falling asleep, only in pulling the shades on the windows of those I needed to. 

We made our way to the Green Dome, my new base of operations. For now, at least.

The higher-ups had made it quite clear what was to happen if I didn’t get results. It didn’t involve anywhere as cushy as the Village.

These places were everywhere. I was surprised that bystanders didn’t stumble upon them more often.

I’d dealt with more than one that had. That was the hardest part; we knew the game, and we had taken the risk.

But sometimes you had to do what you had to do, when you knew you were in the right. You made the hard choices.

The door swung back, and we entered. I could hear the buzz of activity around me, but was unable to see anyone just yet. That was the one thing I hated about the Green Dome – you were never truly alone. I’d had far more privacy as Number Fifty-Eight, if you ignored the fact that my predecessor could check up on me at any given time.

There was a difference between knowing you were being watched in some far off corner of your mind and actually having to hear it.

Here in the Green Dome, it was a tick tick tick of time running out, of the walls closing in on me.

I still remembered my days working in records. I had been quiet; I had known how to hide in plain sight, or how to fade into wallpaper. I’d had the secrets of a whole organization trapped in my head, using my photographic memory to store them instead of the names of people I’d played tennis once like I had when I was a teenager.

And then I had come here. My little blessing in disguise, the Village. 

I wasn’t a nobody anymore, a go-fer. But I had played one, and I’d played the role well. 

Now, it was harder to put my real self back on. There had been something freeing about acting like a child, like a confused creature who didn’t even know what Number Six was talking about half the time but ran around driving him every which way and listening to his drug-induced rants.

Sometimes I had wished…

But there was no need for that, not now.

“Take a seat, Number Six,” I instructed. There was none of the girl, now. It was only Number Two. It was only me.

To my surprise, he did sit down – maybe the drugs had continued to make him malleable, or maybe the slaps and beating had. It was almost a disappointment.

Or maybe – and part of me hoped this was the case – he was still plotting, still defiant. I loved a challenge.

I snapped my fingers, and he gave me a quizzical look. So he was testing me. 

He never would learn, would he?

I hit a switch – the same switches I had pretended to play with, with child-like glee when I had been Number Fifty-Eight. The same ones that could raise and lower chairs could also turn on blinding lights.

Could also put a man to sleep.

***

I shined a light in his eyes to awaken him.

“Number Six. Listen to the sound of my voice.”

My voice was a very soothing one, or at least I could make it sound that way when I wanted to. Or needed to – the Village had given me the tools to wear any face I needed at any time.

His eyes were following my light as I moved it back and forth.

In this state, he would follow me anywhere. 

But I didn’t want it, not like this. Not under duress.

“All that will matter is the sound of my voice. And when I give you the code word… you will immediately feel a surge of…” I paused. Best to play with his emotions, but I didn’t want to push it too far too fast. “A surge of joy. You will associate this joy with your belonging in the Village and the great sense of pride that comes with your time here.”

Well, he had just won an election after all. In a way, he was fitting in just fine, if I wanted to think about it that way.

His eyes followed again.

“Repeat after me,” I instructed.

***  
A part of me still longed for my old life in the records department. The Village had no lack of records, for sure, tabulated by number and then populated by each and every person who had been that number.

Not that names were any use, here. But it helped to be able to separate one Number Fourteen from another. Sometimes I wondered why they reused the number and hadn’t simply added a new number for each new resident, but someone much higher than me decided such things.

The only record I didn’t have access to was the one that I wanted access to – my own. It would be nice to flip through it and jog my memory about everything I had been, before and after this place.

It was probably wise that they didn’t allow Number Twos access to their own files. Nothing good could come from that; only questions, and I knew what the Village thought about questions.

It was what had gotten me here in the first place, after all.

Number Six seemed to be coming along nicely. Little Albert, indeed. But I hadn’t instilled fear, but something much more deadly and more perfect.

I snapped my fingers to bring him out of his trance.

The only way to know would be to release him back into the wild. Not quite the wild, of course – more like a tiny zoo that looked like the wild but still had nice, safe bars at the far edges.

Rover came in handy for that.

“Number Six,” I instructed. “Go home until I have need of you.” I snapped my fingers. He turned to look at me, and I could still see the tiny spark of defiance. It was hidden behind a haze of confusion, however – a haze of my own making.

Let the experiment begin. I had full faith in myself, even if I didn’t have it in my predecessors.

***

Quite frankly, I wished that I had spent far more of my time as Number Fifty-Eight sleeping. A Number Two’s job was never done, and it required vigilance at all hours of the day as well as the night.

The Village was asleep. All of the numbers who made up each and every perfect little – identical – house were asleep.

But not me. And probably not Number Six, if my suspicions were correct.

I pressed a button.

They would show me this man – my task. The task that had stumped many of my predecessors, but they were all too… They were all too many things. Too arrogant, too easily angered… And quite frankly, too male.

It was always a joy to sit back and watch boys scrap for hours over the silliest things, their pride getting harmed in the process and them all having to crawl away to lick their wounds. Amusing, of course – but ultimately exhausting. I did not have time to be exhausted, and I never had.

I watched him for a while, until his movements bored me. It was time to put this all into place, let all my plans come to fruition.

Then I would be the one… I would be the one who could choose to go anywhere I would like, to be anyone I wanted to be. I could be the sweet little girl or the hard-hearted mistress, but it wouldn’t be to get a job done, it would simply be me.

A chosen me.

Maybe sometimes I could see what he meant about not wanting to be a number. Maybe the arrogance suited him sometimes.

He was, indeed, sleeping now. 

“Wake up, wake up,” I mumbled. If I had to be up at this hour of the day, then quite frankly, so did he. I could walk in there and summon him awake with a cue word, couldn’t I? Make life that much easier, speed it along that much faster.

However, I was cut out of my thoughts with the bright and cheery morning announcements, “Good morning, good morning, good morning, and what a lovely day…”

The man was awake. Time to go to work.

***

“Come here often?” was Number Six’s quip when he saw me standing in front of his door. 

“Only when you’re around,” I replied. I was getting fed up with him all over again. I didn’t want to keep talking to him, but I had made that the cue, after all. I’d have to take my cue and lie with it. “Follow me, Number Six.”

He followed after me for quite a while before he turned and said, “It gives me great joy to be here with you.”

“Oh, really?” I asked.

Little Albert had done his due diligence, I supposed.

“It gives me even more joy to think of how I’m going to torch this place one day.”

I had to keep walking. I would not show defeat. Not now, and not ever.

***

Unfortunately, the best laid plans, as they say.

That very day I received a call on my red telephone. 

I hated people calling me on the phone.

The instructions were clear – I hadn’t come through with the necessary results, and I was to return at once. All of these superiors, always ordering and demanding. I wondered what they would have done in my situation. It was easy for them to tell me to break Number Six, but did I see them in the field getting their hands dirty?

My future, when I returned, was rather uncertain.

It was surprising that I felt no fear.

My replacement struck me as a very dapper sort of fellow, the kind one always marveled at when they passed on the street.

I wondered what the inner workings of such a man were like. I wondered what it would take, or had taken, to break him.

It was a nice mental image.

“What is your plan? Do you have one?” I inquired.

The man chuckled.

“One better than yours,” he said in a jovial tone.

“I’ll give you a bit of advice before I depart. You can’t break his spirit, only – you’ll have to break him entirely. Make him question his very nature.” I began to walk towards the door, then paused as I noticed a binder. I reached out, flipping through it, not entirely sure what I was looking for until I found it.

I smiled.

“Doesn’t this agent look like the spitting image of our Number Six?”


End file.
